Lauren Weber

Syphilis is spreading from big cities into rural counties across the Midwest and West. One Missouri clinic has seen more than six times as many cases in the first few months of 2019 compared with the same period last year. Communities grappling with budget cuts and crumbling public health infrastructure also lack experience in fighting the disease.

Lauren Weber

Lauren Weber, Midwest correspondent for Kaiser Health News, is covering how America’s health system is working — and not working — for patients in that region. Based in St. Louis, her hometown, she tackles everything from rural hospital closures to health system consolidation to state and national reform promises made on the 2020 campaign trail. Formerly a health policy reporter for HuffPost based in Washington, D.C., she has covered a wide variety of topics including Ebola and hepatitis A outbreaks as well as the health of migrant detainees. While at HuffPost, she also created “The Morning Email,” a weekday rundown of the news, and served as the voice of HuffPost on Amazon Echo. She was a 2017 USC Annenberg Health Journalism National Fellow.